Academic Writing
Exchange Student Orientation
4 January 2017
Bridget Palmer
Language Centre
Where are you from?
What is academic writing?
There are no native
speakers of Academic
English.
What is academic writing?
Five of these words describe academic
writing; their opposites do not.
Objective
Colloquial
Formal
Personal
Which five words describe academic
writing?
Conversational
Intellectual
Serious
Impersonal
Emotional
Subjective
What is academic writing?
Academic writing is:
• Objective not subjective
• Intellectual not emotional
• Serious not conversational
• Impersonal not personal
• Formal not colloquial
Objective
Colloquial
Formal
Personal
Conversational
Intellectual
Serious
Impersonal
Emotional
Subjective
Clanchy and Ballard (1992), cited in (Jordan, 1997: 244)
Is this text academic?
What you see in the so-called greenhouse effect is that there are some gases that
trap heat from the sun in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s actually a natural process, and
if these gases weren’t there, the Earth would be a lot colder and there wouldn’t be
any human life. Most of the gases that produce the greenhouse effect are in the
atmosphere naturally in small amounts. But there’s a problem. In the past 200 years
the amounts of these gases have gone up a lot because of things we humans do like
burning fossil fuels. A lot of people think that’s the main reason why the Earth’s
temperature’s gone up by ½ C over the last 100 years, and that’s why the sea level’s
about 10 centimeters higher than 100 years ago. Now they reckon that the Earth’s
temperature’s going to go up by between 1C and 4C in the next 50 years even if we
make big cuts in the amounts of greenhouse gases that we put out. That’s because
there’s a delay – as much as 30 years – between when the gases are emitted and
when you notice their effects. If the temperature goes up by that amount – between
1C and 4C – it’ll have bad effects on lots of things we do: for instance, there could be
floods in some places and droughts in others, and that would make agriculture
impossible.
What changes would you make?
What you see in the so-called greenhouse effect is that there are some gases that
trap heat from the sun in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s actually a natural process, and if
these gases weren’t there, the Earth would be a lot colder and there wouldn’t be any
human life. Most of the gases that produce the greenhouse effect are in the
atmosphere naturally in small amounts. But there’s a problem. In the past 200 years
the amounts of these gases have gone up a lot because of things we humans do like
burning fossil fuels. A lot of people think that’s the main reason why the Earth’s
temperature’s gone up by ½ C over the last 100 years, and that’s why the sea level’s
about 10 centimeters higher than 100 years ago. Now they reckon that the Earth’s
temperature’s going to go up by between 1C and 4C in the next 50 years even if we
make big cuts in the amounts of greenhouse gases that we put out. That’s because
there’s a delay – as much as 30 years – between when the gases are emitted and
when you notice their effects. If the temperature goes up by that amount – between
1C and 4C – it’ll have bad effects on lots of things we do: for instance, there could be
floods in some places and droughts in others, and that would make agriculture
impossible.
What are the features of academic writing?
Academic writing avoids first- and second-person (you, we, I).
Academic writing avoids contractions.
Academic writing seeks to be precise with measurements and
amounts when possible.
However, academic writing does not put forth conclusions it cannot
support absolutely.
Academic writing avoids repetition.
Academic writing uses transition words to highlight relationships
between sentences and clauses.
Academic writing chooses formal words over informal ones.
How do you define a text
as academic?
What is academic in your
field or your work?
What do you need to consider when
writing academically?
purpose
audience
cultural conventions
field conventions
your own voice
Does culture have an impact on academic
writing?
Source: Edward T. Hall, Iceberg Theory of Culture
Finnish vs. Anglo-American style
Finns
Anglo-Americans
General rhetorical structure
implicit
explicit
Information placement
end-weight; start from distance
important points early
Main point
comes late; in conclusions
start with main point;
repeat in results
Text and meta-text
less text about text
more text about text
There is enormous variation in
academic style and
conventions depending on your
field and the purpose of the text
you are writing.
Who is your audience?
What do they know?
What do they not know?
Why are they reading your
text?
Find some examples of good
academic writing in your field.
What makes it good?
What are some academic writing tools?
LexTutor Text Analysis (based on the Academic Word List)
http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/
What are some academic writing tools?
Corpus Tools (based on the Corpus of Contemporary American
English)
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
What are some academic writing tools?
Corpus Tools (based on the Corpus of Contemporary American
English)
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
What is the role of academic writing in
education?
“The sorts of activities that constitute a
research paper – identifying, locating,
assessing, and assimilating others’
research and then developing and
expressing your own ideas clearly and
persuasively – are at the center of the
educational experience.”
Source: MLA Handbook, 7th ed. (page vii)
Remember:
Academic
writing
is a skill. It can be
studied,
practiced, and
improved!
Thank you!
Bridget Palmer
Language Centre
Agora – 2nd Floor
[email protected]
KIEN2033 – Intercultural Communication
Mondays, 10-12